How does Anti-Aliasing Work on Affinity Designer.

[Schmu]

Hello. I'm attempting to upload art made in Affinity Designer to Teespring. I export as a PNG, Resample: Bilinear and don't resize the image larger when creating my listing. After creating the listing, the preview looks pixelated. Other shops don't have this pixelation problem on their product pages. I'm concerned about the quality of the shirt. Their design tips say to turn off anti-aliasing in Illustrator. Can I achieve a similar result in Designer to prevent pixilation of a printed product? I see an export option for nearest neighbor but I don't fully understand this or if it will allow my design to be printed with high quality. The artwork are vectors and they are only pixelated when uploaded to the shop. What would you suggest?

[Callum]

Hi Schmu,

Welcome to the forums

If your design is completely vector it shouldn't be pixelated like this please could you provide the affinity project file so I can investigate this further?

Thanks

C

[doug-life]

On 5/1/2020 at 8:04 AM, Callum said:

Hi Schmu,

Welcome to the forums

If your design is completely vector it shouldn't be pixelated like this please could you provide the affinity project file so I can investigate this further?

Thanks

C

Hello,

Schmu has a problem similar to mine. My vector doc comes out blurry when exported to PNG; can't figure out why.

I set my canvas up with the aspect ratio I'm exporting to so I don't think resampling is the problem.

I attached my file if you'd like to take a look. Thanks!

300x60 from scratch2.afdesign

[Callum]

13 hours ago, doug-life said:

Hello,

Schmu has a problem similar to mine. My vector doc comes out blurry when exported to PNG; can't figure out why.

I set my canvas up with the aspect ratio I'm exporting to so I don't think resampling is the problem.

I attached my file if you'd like to take a look. Thanks!

300x60 from scratch2.afdesign 48.6 kB · 2 downloads

Please can you make sure you are viewing the image at 100% as it will look blurry if you zoom into the image.

Thanks

C

[doug-life]

4 hours ago, Callum said:

Please can you make sure you are viewing the image at 100% as it will look blurry if you zoom into the image.

Thanks

C

Still looks blurry when viewing at 100% (even when I open the PNG in AD).

*Just so no confusion  -  I don't have any complaints with the AD file I attached previously; only the PNG format that I export it too.

[onno-r]

 Hi doug-life, (and Schmu)

Your artboard is set to 300x60 pixels which amounts to 2,54cm x 0,51cm @ 300dpi.

In vector you won't see pixels but in PNG you will.

My suggestions would be, depending on your output (size)needs: 

1 in AD check all layers and shapes: Layers > cogwheel > coverage map: make it a horizontal line at the top. This provides clean sharp edges.

2 set your artboard to the real world output size in cm or inches. make sure the document setup is @300dpi, don't forget to scale the artwork as well.

3 in export persona when choosing PNG set the 'pixel format' to 'use document format'. For resampling I always use 'nearest neighbour' so colours stay clean and unmixed.

with a size of like 25,4cm by 5,08cm your output @300dpi will be 3000x600 pixels.

Hope this is of use

[doug-life]

11 hours ago, onno-r said:

 Hi doug-life, (and Schmu)

Your artboard is set to 300x60 pixels which amounts to 2,54cm x 0,51cm @ 300dpi.

In vector you won't see pixels but in PNG you will.

My suggestions would be, depending on your output (size)needs: 

1 in AD check all layers and shapes: Layers > cogwheel > coverage map: make it a horizontal line at the top. This provides clean sharp edges.

2 set your artboard to the real world output size in cm or inches. make sure the document setup is @300dpi, don't forget to scale the artwork as well.

3 in export persona when choosing PNG set the 'pixel format' to 'use document format'. For resampling I always use 'nearest neighbour' so colours stay clean and unmixed.

with a size of like 25,4cm by 5,08cm your output @300dpi will be 3000x600 pixels.

Thanks for your imput, onno-r

The aspect ratio for the PNG file I want is same as my AD doc setup (300x60 pixels). I have setup the AD doc at 300dpi

The Source and Dest graphs are also set with horizontal line at top. I then selected the Linear option; in case this made a difference (no visible difference once exported again).

No visible difference once exported again using Nearest Neighbor

The last thing you mentioned - which I still need to try - is setting up my document using the physical dimensions of where it needs to be used - it's a screen that I don't yet have exact dimensions for; I'm guessing its about 15 ft x 3 ft (457.2cm x 91.44cm)

*Looking through other forum threads; seems that a lot of other people are haveing the same problem with PNG; don't see any thread where the problem was resolved (could this be a limitation of AD?).

[onno-r]

Hi doug-life,

You mean to say there's no difference between 'bilinear' and 'nearest neighbour' ? Good to know.

Since your output's going to be quite big (4.5m x 0.9m roughly) you may ask yourself if png-format is right for this job.

Is is for print on paper? what will be the viewing distance? etc. A tif maybe more practical. Will you be printing yourself?

I'm not certain that png is meant for really big output and my old PS CS4 has difficulties with it, PS CC does not AFAIK.

Good luck,

Onno

[pyxelles]

Oh wow, thanks Schmu for raising this as I having been having the same issue and was trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Affinity designer is vector software but when any designs have a stroke/outline or line- the edges become pixelated when I change the orientation or rotation of the object or line. 

I'm also using AD for print on demand and even though I export high resolution PNGs @300 dpi, when I upload my designs on t-shirts on Teespring and Redbubble, the images quality look quite poor as compared to other seller's T-shirts. The resolution of the images looks low and the fonts also appear blurry even when I try re-uploading the edited version of the same image with larger font sizes and it's no better. The worst is when I try  resizing the image to fit smaller products,  the image looks worse- slightly distorted at times and any outlines or sharp lines become jagged and blurry. When the image is at 100% it's just OK but once you start scaling down it gets the fonts and image quality gets worse. 

Yet when I look at the work of others on the POD platforms their images look sharp and even very small fonts are more legible than my large fonts. I had to delete all my designs because they look really bad next to others.

When resizing the image the smaller I go the worse the image gets which confuses me because I thought it the image quality worsened when you increased the size. I'll try reuploading at various sizes and still poor images. It's quite frustrating because the whole point of designing in vectors is having the flexibility to export high resolution images. 

[doug-life]

On 5/8/2020 at 7:31 AM, onno-r said:

... Is is for print on paper? what will be the viewing distance? etc. A tif maybe more practical. Will you be printing yourself?

thanks for your response. 

The png file is to be displayed on a video screen (not print). Not sure if any other format can be used; I'm told that file type needs to be png.

Not sure if this clarification changes your thinking at all (in regards to my problem).

[Fixx]

can't you just use PDF and keep file as vectors

[pyxelles]

On 5/13/2020 at 9:52 AM, Fixx said:

can't you just use PDF and keep file as vectors

You can't use PDF or vector files for print on demand. They usually require raster files-PNG or JPEG. Obviously PNG is preferred by most pattern artists because designs exported as PNG are better quality than a JPEG image albeit a bigger file. PNG also have a transparent background property which is very useful as the background colours can be changed easily. 

When I compare my images (for print ) to those of others on the POD platforms their images look sharp and even very small fonts are more legible than my large fonts.  No matter what I do (I export at 300dpi) my images look like poor resolution images with fuzzy outlines when I had to scale down to suit that particular apparel, which is strange because isn't this supposed to happen when you scale up instead?

So many people using Affinity Designer have complained about this and it's not because people don't know what they are doing! People who use Adobe illustrator have sharper images because AI has the anti-aliasing feature which is switched off prior to exporting and this ensures that the images are crisp with smooth edges. I don't know why AD aren't sorting this out when so many people have complained. Even Canva exports of the same dimensions have better quality images.

[lepr]

[deleted]

Edited May 16, 2020 by anon2

[lepr]

On 4/25/2020 at 6:12 PM, Schmu said:

Hello. I'm attempting to upload art made in Affinity Designer to Teespring. I export as a PNG, Resample: Bilinear and don't resize the image larger when creating my listing. After creating the listing, the preview looks pixelated. Other shops don't have this pixelation problem on their product pages. I'm concerned about the quality of the shirt. Their design tips say to turn off anti-aliasing in Illustrator. Can I achieve a similar result in Designer to prevent pixilation of a printed product? I see an export option for nearest neighbor but I don't fully understand this or if it will allow my design to be printed with high quality. The artwork are vectors and they are only pixelated when uploaded to the shop. What would you suggest?

 

Looks like your design was exported to an image file such as PNG that was only a few hundred pixels wide and then scaled up with nearest neighbour resampling to a few thousand pixels wide for a t-shirt, instead of being exported directly to an image file that is a few thousand pixels wide.

As a rough guide for an adult t-shirt for example: if the site wants 300 dpi artwork, you should export from Designer an image file that is about 12 inches wide at 300 dpi, so 12 x 300 which equates to 3600 pixels wide, and then upload that file.

Each POD site's help/information should have a list of recommended image sizes for various products.

[pyxelles]

On 5/16/2020 at 9:40 AM, anon2 said:

 

Looks like your design was exported to an image file such as PNG that was only a few hundred pixels wide and then scaled up with nearest neighbour resampling to a few thousand pixels wide for a t-shirt, instead of being exported directly to an image file that is a few thousand pixels wide.

As a rough guide for an adult t-shirt for example: if the site wants 300 dpi artwork, you should export from Designer an image file that is about 12 inches wide at 300 dpi, so 12 x 300 which equates to 3600 pixels wide, and then upload that file.

Each POD site's help/information should have a list of recommended image sizes for various products.

Even experienced graphic designers have complained about this problem since 2014 - read the forums. It's not because everyone who has been complaining about this, doesn't know what they are doing. What I have learned is that it has something to do with switching anti-aliasing off which is a feature other software like Adobe illustrator have but Affinity Designer doesn't. Apparently switching anti-aliasing off prior to exporting the image makes all the difference, giving that sharp crisp image everyone is after and that's why in the forums people keep asking "how to switch anti-aliasing off".

Even PNG files exported at 4000 x 4000 px still appear poor with jagged edges when imported into RedBubble-try it and maybe you'll understand what many people are complaining about. Even uploading at the POD's recommended sizes doesn't make a difference. RedBubble for instance has over 20 different products with various dimension requirements ranging from 2380 x 1630 px to 7632 x 6480 px which is pretty tedious uploading different sizes. Redbubble recommend uploading one large high resolution file at 7632 x 6480 px which can be scaled up and down to  accommodate the various products dimensions. When the file first uploaded then image quality is OK but might be too large for the apparel and needs to be scaled down (there's a scale slider 0-100%) to smaller size. However, the image gets fuzzy, the outlines/strokes and text get distorted with jagged edges, it's odd the smaller you go the more low res the image appears and the text becomes illegible. Sometimes I'm forced to have a larger scale of the image on the product because it's sharper when scaled up! Meanwhile other images on the platform appear crisp and sharp, even the text designs with much smaller fonts are legible and sharp- I bet you those people didn't use Affinity Designer. 

[Jowday]

31 minutes ago, pyxelles said:

I bet you those people didn't use Affinity Designer. 

They didn't!

[Kochab]

I'm having the same problem. My designs look horrible next to others. Honestly, I'm shocked this is an issue. I love AD and have been using it for years, but just started getting into print-on-demand work where it hasn't been going well at all. They all want PNG files, not vectors. I tried exporting with every type of PNG resampling AD offers and all result in jagged designs. Here is the page on Teespring that talks about anti-aliasing. We desperately need this in AD:
https://community.teespring.com/training-center/design-file-tips-best-practices/

[Jowday]

Could one of you please provide a sample file in .afdesign format for us to use for testing and demonstration.

That Teespring site mentions DPI 99 times and image size 1 and DPI is the most misunderstood term on the planet. I can make a PNG image 32 x 32 pixels @400 DPI and 95% of the world will think it is a high resolution image that will fit banners. But it is a desktop icon for Windows 95.

Anyway, an example instead of words would improve this thread. I need to see the issues myself.

 

[Kochab]

I posted an AD source file and what it looks like on Teespring when uploaded on a t-shirt. This is a 12.4" x 14.9" document at 300 dpi. Exported as PNG, this is 3720 x 4470 px. You can see on the font (Slackey from google fonts) and circle that it's jagged around the edges. If you look at other shirts on Teespring, they do not have this problem. This is exported with the default PNG bilinear, but all resampling algorithms come out jagged on Teespring. Thank you for looking into it.

example.afdesign

[firstdefence]

Just for comparison of the same graphic from different apps.

This is the text and ellipse from Illustrator CC

This is the Artwork from Affinity Designer 

[Jowday]

1 hour ago, Kochab said:

I posted an AD source file and what it looks like on Teespring when uploaded on a t-shirt. This is a 12.4" x 14.9" document at 300 dpi. Exported as PNG, this is 3720 x 4470 px. You can see on the font (Slackey from google fonts) and circle that it's jagged around the edges. If you look at other shirts on Teespring, they do not have this problem. This is exported with the default PNG bilinear, but all resampling algorithms come out jagged on Teespring. Thank you for looking into it.

 

example.afdesign 28.78 kB · 2 downloads

Oh, you did post it earlier, sorry. Allright, I will see for myself later today and compare on my work machine with output from Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW as well.

[Jowday]

 

4 hours ago, Kochab said:

I posted an AD source file and what it looks like on Teespring when uploaded on a t-shirt. This is a 12.4" x 14.9" document at 300 dpi. Exported as PNG, this is 3720 x 4470 px. You can see on the font (Slackey from google fonts) and circle that it's jagged around the edges. If you look at other shirts on Teespring, they do not have this problem. This is exported with the default PNG bilinear, but all resampling algorithms come out jagged on Teespring. Thank you for looking into it.

example.afdesign 28.78 kB · 5 downloads

My upload of the same file looks great in Teespring. No matter how I export your file it looks great. If I export it as vector in PDF, import it in Photoshop (which renders it at the correct size and DPI) and export it to PNG can't tell the difference between that PNG and the ones from Affinity. Nice round corners.

Two examples attached.

First "Bicubic" from Affinity

Second "PS_flat" from Photoshop CC 2020

What browser did you use to design your t-shirts in Teespring? And could I see one of the files that did looked wrong on that site?

[Jowday]

Output files

out.zip

[lacerto]

(...)

[Alfred]

6 minutes ago, Lagarto said:

I think that Affinity apps can only produce antialiased (smoothened) bitmaps

In the desktop versions of the Affinity apps — but not currently in the iPad versions — you can use the Coverage Map to address the problem: